Sharing the Gift

I've been looking at some beautiful art prints to buy to supplement my favorite wall in our living room and came across this one a while back by my all time favorite artist, Susan Rios. Just about all the prints on this wall are by her so it was wonderful to add to my collection. I love her art and we've been emailing back and forth. What a sense of humor this woman has. I am astounded by her beautiful paintings and showed her a picture of my wall. I think she liked it, but I would truly love to be able to paint like this little chickee. Oh my, how gorgeous is this one! It is called "Sharing the Gift" and I'd love to have a patio like this one on which to sit with lace cushions, smell the roses and dream of my garden.

This is how it looks on that wall above the biggest painting
Closer view of it.

And a little mosaic table my daughter made that I confiscated while down in California last week. It fits just perfectly there by my chair. I've been looking all over for a side table to sit in that area but wasn't able to find anything. Thank goodness I found this in her garage while down there.
~*~

Random Thought

If you can't forgive your hubby or wife of anything, then you don't love them enough.

Saving Money on Repairs and Being Green

A couple of months ago I almost burned the house down from cooking. I turned the stove burner to low and I mean real low but something malfunctioned and it didn't go low, instead, it went HIGH! Luckily we caught it in time.

Now, does this mean I shouldn't cook anymore. Nuuuuuuu, hubby doesn't like that kind of talk since he really enjoys eating but likes to save money any time he can. Me??? I just want things to work well and as they should and not become a hazard. He's my hero when it comes to fixing things but for this particular time he was busy with some other business and told me to call an appliance repairman. I did. Just to have that man come in cost me $70.00 plus the cost of the part. It was a switch behind the knob, not the element itself. Hubby was flabbergasted at the price. So I happened to do some research on doing the job ourselves and found a wonderful place to buy replacement parts for just about any and every appliance you can imagine. If you need to replace any part of an appliance go to EasyApplianceParts and buy it at a savings and repair it yourself. Save money!!

Now, the advantages are cost saving in more ways than one. First of all, you don't pay for a repairman to come out and I think it's important these days to know how to fix your own appliances. Our stove is less than 4 years old and no way were we going to buy a new one. I just wish I had known there were people on the internet who sell appliance parts at a discount so we could have saved 70+ dollars. With the economy the way it is every little bit helps. Plus things aren't put into a landfill to rust for eternity. It just makes sense to save money, be as "green" as you can and get it done quicker. Oh, did I mention it took him almost 2 weeks to get here?

Looks like a simple stainless steel sink, huh??? Nope, it has so many things underneath that you wouldn't believe it. The spout on the right hand side with the little black handle is for instant hot water for hot drinks. That's very hot water. The curved neck spout on the extreme left is filtered cool water. But there's even more underneath the sink. We have an instant hot water tank that gives us instant hot water for washing hands and dishes. This is not as hot as the spout for drinks however. So you can imagine how many things could go wrong just under our sink!

We all need to know where to get the correct part for any appliance in our homes and to learn how to do it ourselves. It just makes sense, ladies!

Creating For A Special Chick

I created this for a chick. She doesn't yet know she is getting it. It's made of shabby roses fabric, paper roses, tissue paper garland, buttons, netting around the bottom, a "special chick sigh" and little charms. I can't wait until she gets it.

I am sooooo loving this new camera and the pix it takes. Much better than a few weeks ago!!
~*~

Thelma and Louise Do California Golden State Freeway

Okay, chicks, it wasn't pretty! I've giving you fair warning now.

We left Idaho for northern California on tuesday last. This is Oregon for those of you who think it's all lush and green. Au contraire! It was snowing, cold and windy through the eastern deserts of Oregon. And this is what we saw for about 200 miles: sand, sagebrush and horizon to the mountains.

*

Update on son.

You can see this picture of him taken on 4/18, which was 2 weeks after his beating. While there I took him to emergency because his leg—the one operated on 3/9—was hurting him and they thought the "beaters" had re-injured his leg. He goes back to ortho on wednesday 4/22 to see if it is, in fact, injured more after the beating. His vision is still cloudy but the left eye has sustained some trauma. That eye pupil is now oval instead of round as it should be and makes him susceptible to detached retina and more susceptible to glaucoma in the future. His vision is like looking through a cloud and left eye is worse. This can go away and we're needing prayers that it does. His left eye isn't as wide open as his right. The bruising is subsiding but still visible after 2 weeks. He is still in pain in the head. Police haven't gotten the guys in custody yet. I know this takes a while so I'm not too concerned. Son still does not remember talking to me the day after this occurred. Most of his memory is vague on the beating and he would like to see the surveillance video but hasn't seen it yet.

~*~

My daughter and I went to southern California on thursday last. It was Thelma and Louise (I've never seen the movie, but it's what I think the movie was about.) We've set the Golden State freeway (I-5) and a certain McDonalds back 50 years.

As usual we ate our way from northern Calif. through to southern Calif. Potty stop at McDs also caused a certain "stir" among the diners.

Daughter had to potty badly as she never stops drinking! We stop at a McDs and when we walk in running with our legs crossed there was a sign on the women's room door and door jamb saying it was out of order. Daughter, being the brat she is, opens the door to the men's room shouting "woman coming through!" A man yells that there are men in there but nuuuuuuuuu, DD didn't let that stop her. She told him he doesn't have anything she hasn't seen before and kind of shields her face with her hand to give the guy at the urinal a bit of privacy. (?) *Sigh*..............

She runs to the only stall, opens it, goes in, turns and puts her purse on the door hanger, turns around and there is a guy sitting on the toilet with his jeans around his ankles looking at her. (I'm on the outside of the door hearing all this and trying not to wet my pants.) She says "oops" and grabs purse and runs to the door and just about knocks me on my bottom. There is no way we would have made it to another rest stop so we ripped the "out of order" sign on the women's door and door jamb and go in. The floor is filthy with over run toilet "garbage" and the toilets are stopped up but we HAD to go and go THEN! We relieved ourselves and I washed my hands. I didn't even bother to flush as there .................. well, you can get the picture. I turned on the hand dryer and DD has a fit because then we can't hear if the men have left the men's room. We waited for it to turn off and then peeked out to see if they were there. Coast is clear so we march out of the women's room and RUN to the exit door before we get recognized and stopped. I got outta that place as fast as I could. Needless to say, we didn't trash the women's room any more than it was trashed. I felt filthy after that.

DD asked why any man would not lock the stall door and I said I doubt he thought a 5'11" woman was going to crash in on him! I think the poor guy is still traumatized at that experience.

It took us 6 1/2 hours to get from northern Calif. to my son's house in southern Calif. The drive back was 8 hours. *Sigh*.................

Okay, we have a GPS in my car and hubby spend the better part of an hour setting it for me and DD to not lose our way.............. We lost our way back!! We ended up in the desert northeast of Riverside. I told DD that this was looking vaguely familiar to where we lived 40 years ago—the Calif. desert. When I saw the "Hesperia" exit sign I knew we were waaaaaaay off track. I had a sneaking suspicion before that but DD said Nuuuuuuuuuu, we're on target. She's lucky to be alive but I'm gonna shoot the voice in the GPS for not telling us to turn off of the 215 onto the 210. I can't repeat what DD said she was going to do to the 'Ho' in the GPS! Her words, not mine. I don't use that kind of language.

Anyway, I thought you'd like to see some roses blooming in her yard. Her hubby picked this one and brought it in for her. The pink ones are blooming on the bush on her deck as you can see from the last picture.

Hubs was glad to see we made it back when we arrived at her house. He was at a convention and couldn't go down with us and son didn't want him to miss the convention so it was just the two of us: Thelma and Louise. Only we survived! *Sigh*...................

I think I'm still traumatized from the trip so I'll go rest now. *Sigh*................

White Fan

When I attend a temple session I get warm in there as they keep it warmer for the older people who attend so I bought this gorgeous white fan since everything in the temple is white. There's a touch of gold on the sides and on those little things that hold the fabric, but isn't it simply gorgeous?

Practicing my artful blogging on these close ups also. I'm getting "adequate" with my new camera now. *Smiling*!!